After losing both opening batsmen in quick succession, with Pietersen falling soon after, England were looking to rebuild steadily with Strauss and Collingwood at the crease. After hitting their 50-partnership in 80 balls, both men fell one after another inside 2 overs.

Flintoff was quickly dispatched by a reverse-swinging delivery from Andrew Hall that went in between bat and body to take out the top of middle-stump. Two overs later and Nixon fell for 1 on the last ball of the 36th over, followed by Mahmood being bowled on the first delivery of Hall's next over leaving him on a hat-trick, which he narrowly missed achieving after a wild swing by Monty Panesar just missed the ball, but went on to fly in to wicket-keeper Boucher's hands.

Boucher caught Panesar off of the bowling of Nel following a poor shot, and Hall went on to bowl Anderson out to get his first ODI five-wicket haul (taking the wickets of Collingwood, Flintoff, Nixon, Mahmood and Anderson), the third of the competition (after fellow South Africans Charl Langeveldt's against Sri Lanka and Andre Nel's against Bangladesh), to finish with figures of 5-18 (10) - the best by a South African in a World Cup, beating Lance Klusener's 5-21 against Kenya in 1999. Andrew Strauss top scored for England with 46 and Bopara added precious runs at the tail end of England's innings with 27*, in a similar fashion to his 52 against Sri Lanka.

South Africa started batting in emphatic fashion: reaching 50 in just 5.4 overs: in contrast, England had taken 15.1 overs to reach 50; and while de Villiers was lucky not to be out on just 21 after being caught behind by Nixon off of the bowling of Anderson, (it was an edge so faint that the umpire, Steve Bucknor, couldn't hear it and couldn't give it), South Africa kept the foot on the gas and even after losing de Villiers on 42 they kept the run rate around 8, resulting in Smith getting 50 off of just 34 deliveries with only 9 dot balls, finishing on 85*. Kallis got to 17*, including getting his 9000th ODI run - a feat only 10 players have achieved.